


Curiosity

by museicalitea



Category: Haikyuu!!
Genre: Gen, HQ Brofest Rookie Tier, Training Camp
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-04-04
Updated: 2018-04-04
Packaged: 2019-04-18 06:44:23
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,850
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14207385
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/museicalitea/pseuds/museicalitea
Summary: "I'm glad you said yes to Sawamura back then."Unspoken:I'm glad I got to meet you, Shimizu Kiyoko. We're not so dissimilar, huh?





	Curiosity

**Author's Note:**

> Written for the Rookie Tier of HQ Brofest 2018. I wanted to write something about the girls, more specifically Yukie, and this is what resulted in the end.

It's hot in the kitchen; too hot, even with the door propped open and the windows thrown wide. Yukie shakes her hair out of her face and grimaces as it sticks. It's the wrong sort of weather to be cooking for countless many teenage boys, and it would be so much nicer to be lying in the grass, in the shade, relaxing with a clipboard of team statistics and an entire neatly sliced watermelon.

But Suzumeda's ended up on watermelon duties, and Yukie's stuck cooking lunch. And okay, it means she gets to taste-test it, but she's almost too hot to appreciate that.

Almost. She's not about to pass up free food.

The floor squeaks near the door, and Yukie reaches for her ladle, because she's hot and tired and if any of her boys have come to disturb her peace—

"Hello, Shirofuku-san."

And Yukie huffs a laugh.

"Oh. Hey, Shimizu-san. Did they finish all the watermelon?"

Shimizu shakes her head as she comes in, retying her ponytail. "I thought you might need a hand in here. I would have come sooner I just got caught up talking with Sawamura about a practice session he wants to run this evening."

"Extra practice?"

"They're trying to get as much out of this camp as possible."

"I think I saw some of your guys practising with Bokuto-kun and Akaashi. They looked like they could keep going all night."

"Some of our guys are like that. They all want to grow. Or… most of them do."

Shimizu Kiyoko is interesting.  _ Reserved  _ is hardly a word Yukie can apply to anyone she knows, and it's the best way she can describe Shimizu. She doesn't talk much unprompted, and keeps mostly to herself even in the girls' dorm. But there's a quickness to her pen and solidity in her stance when Yukie glimpses her across the gym during practice matches, and something tells her Shimizu Kiyoko isn't a person to mess with.

The thought makes her grin.

"Here, come and taste this." Yukie beckons towards the pot of curry simmering on the stove. "I can't tell if it's just right or if I could get away with adding a  _ little  _ more spice…"

Shimizu walks over in measured steps, unhurried; the steps of someone who knows she will get where she needs to be someday. She picks up a spoon on her way, and wafts the lazy fug of curry towards her nose first.

"It smells good," she says. "Do you like cooking?"

Yukie chuckles and leans back against the counter. "I like  _ eating,  _ and sometimes convenience store food doesn't cut it, you know? I want to eat something, I learn how to cook it. Or ask Washio-kun to buy it for me," she adds as a afterthought.

She's the only person Washio will buy food for. He never makes a big deal about it; just tells her  _ good job today, Shirofuku  _ as he hands her whatever snack she'd been trying very hard not to look at, and as Komi rounds up the kouhai to treat them and Konoha digs out his wallet for the other third years, she'll bump her fist against Washio's shoulder, and know there's nothing more she needs to say.

In some ways, it's only fair. Bokuto always whines that he doesn't have his wallet, and Yukie often ends up paying for Bokuto's share somehow. Many a time, she's threatened to sit him down and give him a lesson on money management.

But then, Bokuto's forgetful—one of his many weaknesses—and when he was protesting against it:

_ But you're our manager, so surely you're best at managing things, Yukie-chan! _

And she's certainly best at managing these boys. She keeps invoices, and has a plan drafted up for getting Bokuto to pay her back by the time they graduate. And in the meantime, Washio sees a lot more than he'll ever let on, and keeps her stomach happy.

Shimizu hums, and tastes the curry. "You like it spicy."

"It doesn't taste good unless it's got a kick to it!"

"That's what Sugawara would say."

"Sugawara?" It annoys her somewhat that after this long, she still can't put names to faces for all the Karasuno players. But Shimizu's voice carries no judgement as she elaborates; just a small, steady sense of pride.

"Our other setter."

And now she can picture him. Their number 2. Average height, soft silver-blond hair, the fiercest back slaps and chest punches Yukie's ever seen. He's a setter the whole team trusts, even though he's nowhere near the refined skill level of their first-year genius, and that's something Yukie respects. And for all that…

"He's the spicy type?"

And suddenly Shimizu laughs. Her laugh is quiet; nearly everything she does is quiet. But the sound is rich and full, happy, and so genuine that Yukie's chest softens. Somehow, it seems like this is the way it should be, that Shimizu is the type only to laugh when she truly means to.

"Sugawara can eat a plate of the spiciest  _ mapo tofu  _ you've ever tasted and come back for seconds with a smile on," Shimizu says. She dips her spoon back in and scoops up a piece of chicken. "He once got our captain to try some, and Sawamura couldn't feel his tongue for a day after."

Yukie smirks. "What a troublemaker."

"He's certainly mischievous." Shimizu moves to the sink and turns on the tap, and her movements are certain, precise, as she begins to stack dishes. "But he's a lot more than that."

Yukie moves back to the pot and heaps in another tablespoon of curry powder. Anyone who can eat two plates of spicy  _ mapo tofu  _ in one sitting earns high respect in her books, and there's no question now of upping the spice levels. She hopes it'll make Sugawara happy, too.

"Have you been a manager long, Shimizu-san?" she asks.

Shimizu dons a pair of rubber gloves, and Yukie moves to fluff up the rice in the cookers. She's starting to get the sense that Shimizu likes to consider her whole answer before she speaks. When she first met Shimizu, she likened it to Akaashi; but then, Akaashi's mind is lightning-quick, and his tongue sharp whenever it needs to be. Shimizu is just as careful with her words, but differently.

It's sort of nice, coming from a team where everyone speaks their mind honestly and without hesitation, to meet a person who speaks a little more kindly.

"Since my first year."

Yukie lifts a lid, fluffs the rice, places it down. Moves to the next cooker. Repeats. It smells good, and she looks to Shimizu's back with a smile.

"You've been with them the whole way too, then."

"Nearly." It's crystalline, the longing and the memory in Shimizu's voice. This is something she treasures. "Sawamura asked me after their Inter-High preliminaries. He said they would need help rebuilding the team, and he'd heard good things about my reliability and organisation."

"You weren't in any other clubs?"

"I did athletics for three years in junior high. Hurdles. I'm a good runner, and I did well, and it wasn't like the people weren't kind." Shimizu's hands move rhythmic in time with her words, and Yukie pauses at the weight in her voice. "But it was lonely. And I'm not the best at making friends. I wasn't sure if I should join athletics again when I got to high school, so I waited, to see if I would miss it first. And then Sawamura approached me."

"Quite a leap, from hurdles to volleyball."

"They both have running and jumping."

Yukie laughs. "So they do."

"I knew nothing about volleyball when I started. But it didn't matter. Not really."

Shimizu doesn't need to tell her why. Yukie's been there herself. They just pull you in and teach you everything you need to know; and in the process you attach yourself and never look back.

"You sound like Suzumeda-kun," she says at last.

"Your… second-year manager?"

"Uh-huh. She did pole vault, all through junior high and her first term at Fukurodani."

"Pole vault? That's very impressive."

"Do you have a team?"

"Not at my middle school. But I saw the teams from Niiyama and Shiratorizawa and the other big schools when I went to junior high meets. It takes a lot of guts."

"Suzumeda-kun has more than enough guts for it. She got injured. Not seriously, but enough that she had to take a break from the sport, and one of our guys in her year suggested she come along. I think she was getting bored of doing nothing, and she wanted the challenge. And she's great. She wrangles them up when they're getting too ridiculous and she's strong, she can carry so much of our gear by herself… and wait until you see her chop a watermelon. She likes the camaraderie too."

"It's good to be on a team."

Shimizu stacks dishes. The cicadas are loud through the window. The heat of the day is sharp, but cutting through it all is the laughter and chatter of the boys out in the sun. Her boys, and Shimizu's too.

"How about you, Shirofuku-san? You sound like you've got quite your own story to tell about ending up here."

Yukie shakes her head. It's not a secret, how she ended up with the Fukurodani Volleyball Club, but to relate this to Shimizu, with her backstory of  _ feeling out of place _ and  _ playing sports previously _ and  _ friendship _ and all of that… 

"It's not much. They needed a manager, and… don't tell anyone this."

"I swear my silence. On my team jacket, if that helps."

Well… it's not a secret.

"They said the training camps had free food. A lot of it. It… was a very tempting offer." Yukie sighs. "At least you weren't coerced into it by  _ food,  _ of all things…"

To her credit, Shimizu doesn't even laugh. She just nods, like this is a perfectly normal course of events, and picks up a tea towel to start drying cutlery.

"You stayed with them, though."

"The food's been better since I started making it… now I think of it, maybe  _ that  _ was the reason they wanted me to join in the first place…"

"I'm sure that's not why they wanted you to stay."

"I know."

And there's something in Shimizu's voice, that pride again; and it's something Yukie's felt too, ever since she saw her first practice match and realised what this game meant to her own team.

"I'm glad you said yes to Sawamura back then."

Unspoken:  _ I'm glad I got to meet you, Shimizu Kiyoko. We're not so dissimilar, huh? _

"So am I."

And in Shimizu's clear eyes and secret smile as she looks back to Yukie:  _ We are quite alike, aren't we? _

Yukie nods, and feels a smile run through her whole being, and thinks that maybe a kitchen on a hot day isn't such a bad place to be when it's for the team she loves, in some sense of the word, and especially when she has such good company.  
  


**Author's Note:**

> Thank you for reading!
> 
> [Twitter](https://twitter.com/museicalitea) | [Tumblr](http://museicaliteacup.tumblr.com/)


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